|
|
|
|
GET IN THE GAME
Click here to submit your photos, story ideas or comments. |
|
As game week approaches, Croom ready for a different feel |
|
Friday, 22 August 2008 |
By AARON SEIDLITZ
Starkville Daily News
With just two more days of practice ahead before the week of Mississippi State’s first football game starts, head coach Sylvester Croom knows what he wants to start seeing out of his team.
Since the beginning of August, the Bulldogs have been out on the practice fields. They have gone through two-a-days, they have shaped the depth chart by their play at practice and they have begun to prepare for the season ahead.
But practicing during game week is different, according to Croom, and he wants to start seeing a difference in the way the Dogs practice.
“I just want to see, overall as we’re getting closer to game week, that excitement about playing the game,” Croom said after Thursday’s practice. “There’s just a special feeling during game week, and I think the defense started to pick up on it a little bit today.”
Croom said the State defense disrupted just about everything the offense wanted to do on Thursday.
The coach said the offense had plays set up and once they started to develop it looked like it was supposed to.
Croom said those plays looked like they were about to be executed for large gains.
But, by the end of practice, it was the defense that had found ways to break up those plays.
“We had some things in the passing game that were open, and balls hit receiver’s hands. Sometimes it looked like it was going to be a nice completion and, some way, the defense and the corners knocked balls out and knocked them loose,” Croom said. “I was disappointed to see that on offense, we didn’t finish plays, but it was good to see the defense find a way to finish plays.”
With State’s offensive coordinator not back to practice yet after having surgery earlier in the week, Croom has still been in charge of the offense.
But, as the head coach, he is still monitoring the team’s overall look and level of play as August 30 creeps closer and closer.
Through monitoring practice, Croom still wants to see more of a spark from his players.
The team will practice Friday and Saturday, and it will still focus on a lot of minor details. Kicking schemes will be practiced and special situations will be hashed over the rest of this week.
But by Monday, Croom wants something different to be viewed in his team’s demeanor.
“It’s not just coming to practice, it’s about getting ready for a game,” Croom said. It’s different, it’s supposed to be different. Right now we’re practicing, next week we’re getting read to play a game.
“It’s pretty hard to put that in words, but you can see it in a guy’s eyes. You can see it in the smile on his face, and you can see it in the way he moves his body.”
GETTING HEALTHY
It didn’t hurt the defense that a few of its key players weren’t hurting as much on Thursday as they have been for much of August.
Junior defensive tackle Kyle Love - a player Croom has highlighted as crucial to the defense’s ability to stop the run - was out of a purple jersey on Thursday.
After battling a sore toe for most of fall practice, the 300-plus pounder was out on the field making plays.
Another big defensive lineman, Cortez McCraney, made his presence known as well at practice. A versatile big man, McCraney will play a little bit of defensive end and tackle this year according to coaches.
“We had Love back in there, and McCraney was looking better in there,” Croom said. “Guys on defense just looked like they were flying around more today than what they normally have been.”
TICKET SALES IMPROVING
So far so good for Mississippi State athletic director Greg Byrne, in terms of how the 2008 football team is selling tickets.
The school released a statement on Thursday that said 35,282 tickets were processed thus far. It also said that that figure indicated a 12 percent increase from last season’s total.
“With record student enrollment expected on our campus this fall, we may even exceed that expected number,” Byrne said in the release, via a letter to the fans.
|
|
Last Updated ( Saturday, 23 August 2008 )
|
|
|
|
